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Refilling freon every year

Hello,

Great forum here, just happened to come upon it.

I have a 23-25 year old GE home unit. After I bought the house 4 years back, I filled gas once, in 2002. Now it looks like we are short again (not cooling enough/at all, plus the local HVAC tech checked it out). I talked to my neighbor whose house was built the same time, and he said he just fills gas every year.

My options appear to be:
1. Keep filling gas every year or two
2. Run a leak test and try to find the leak
3. Replace the whole system including the line set

What do y'all suggest?
Is there any harm to kids with the leak? I know environmentally it is not good. The leak test is not guaranteed to find the leak, so that's not a sure thing.

Do yourself a favor and have a good contractor look at your home and system. He should be able to nail it down close to the dollar as to your potential savings. You may be able to get a system for free or darn near with the low interest rates and energy savings.

Dont the local utilities get enough out of you every month? I wouldn't recommend them, But I am partial to the locally owned and operated service companies who do just that, not part of a profit machine. Its your call though.

Believe me, i know well how the odds are stacked against the small guy (in any business), and would very much like to support independently owned and operated businesses, if they do a good job. All the same I don't want to throw darts and pick anybody out of the yellow pages.

I did get an estimate from one of the local guys today, and he suggested changing just the compressor unit ($3900 for a Westinghouse, i believe 4 ton, 12 SEER). I will speak to a couple more guys and make a decision.

(the flip side is, whenever I have tried to call an independent service for a "small" job, i get the run around. most of them are fully booked, others play games with you. now when i called the first guy for major work, he was at my door in hours!)

Just thought I'd update this one. Robin came out today and gave an inspection of my system. Turns out I have 4 ton ductwork and a 5 ton unit. Seems that someone down the line replaced the original unit with a bigger one, but did not redo the ducting to match. He is going to correct the ductwork and put in a TXV, which will hopefully get that unit working like it should.

A/C Not holding temp down during day, Problem Resolved

Robin and crew came yesterday and did the following;
Increased size of several ducts.
Added an additional return.
Replaced evaporator coil with a new Amana coil with TXV
Relocated condenser unit away from house(was about 3" away before)

They finished at 2:30 and the temperature was at 82. I run it at 78 during the day and then gradually drop it to 73 at night. In the 24 hours since the work was finished, starting at a temperature 4 degrees above usual day setting, the unit has run only 12 hours. It was averaging about 19 hours a day before the modifications and repairs. Additionally, it has increased the comfort level to where I feel we can run it at 74 or even 75 at night now. Oh, and that is with all rooms opened up. Before, I had to close the upper rooms off to allow the unit to maintain 78 during the day. He also gave me several recomendations to improve things even more.

Can't say it did not hurt, pricewise, but the level of workmanship and customer service that was produced left me very impressed and feeling that I had received what I paid for. He will certainly be who I recommend to friends in the future.